Dubai Investments PJSC Make 60% Time Saving Using SFG20

In this in-depth case study, discover how Jawad Bou Saab, Technical FM for Alujama, a division of Dubai Investments PJSC, has managed to reduce time spent drafting scopes of work by 60%, saved money and avoided specification headaches by implementing SFG20 into his workflow. 

Who are Alujama Real Estate? 

“Alujama manages the owners association for jointly owned properties in Dubai. When a building has 200 owners and it's sold to 200 different individuals, there becomes a lot of shared assets and areas. So that's what we manage. Part of the management is facility management and part is maintenance.” 

Who is Jawad Bou Saab? 

“I’m the Technical Facilities Manager, and I’m responsible for a variety of buildings including a community of 17 buildings, a complex of 68 warehouses, a huge office building containing 360 offices, a hotel, a mall, 18 residential buildings and 4 parking blocks. In total, our portfolio covers around 4200 doors across commercial, residential and industrial properties.” 

What prompted the need to follow an internationally recognised standard? 

“We hire service providers and monitor their work. That's how we came to choose SFG20 because we were looking for software or standards that would align us in what a scope of work is, what is required for any type of asset, and how we can maintain it. 

SFG20 is so useful to us because it’s a standard and therefore not negotiable. It's not my opinion versus the service provider's opinion, it's a standard that is internationally acknowledged that we agree to follow. 

In Dubai, there are a few guidelines set forth by authorities, but nothing as clear as, ‘OK, so 3 times a year you need to come open the actuator cover, check it and dust it off’. 

We do have building standards and requirements, but they are mostly applicable at the construction and material selection stage of a building’s lifecycle, not in the operation and maintenance phase.” 

If I had to compare it, I would say guidance from authorities covers about 10% of my needs, with SFG20 filling 80%. If I had access to the SFG20 specialist sets, particularly Building Fabric, then I would say 100%.” 

How has SFG20 helped you? 

“It answers questions raised by authorities, by owners and by service providers. It draws a red line between what's acceptable and what's not, what's a norm and what's a standard.

It saves a lot of vagueness in contract disputes and even in tendering at the tendering stages. I don’t have to quibble with a tender provider over what needs to be maintained, because we are agreeing to follow the SFG20 standard.  

If I have a client that's complaining that his filter is not cleaned once every other day, I can tell him that no, it shouldn't be cleaned once every other day. International standard says every three months, so to compromise with his needs we can tailor the frequency to once a month instead of every other day.  

This saves us a significant amount of money and reassures the client that we are both listening to his needs and doing things the right way.”  

SFG20 also saves you money? 

“Definitely. I’m able to pin my service provider against the time it should take to complete an activity, instead of the time he actually reports to me. 

So, if we agree that a task should take 30 minutes according to the standard, and he does it in 50 minutes, I only have to pay him for 30. It allows me to get more value for money from my service providers, because obviously they don’t want to complete unpaid maintenance work. 

It also helps us to save money because you know what you do and do not need to maintain, which can help you avoid spending budget where you don’t need to.”  

Does SFG20 save you time?

“It saves time through the integration and when setting up scopes. Instead of having to write scopes, I can just read through SFG20 schedules, choose what I want, choose if I want to increase or decrease frequencies and push it out. I would say it saves me 60-70% of my time.” 

How would you rate working with SFG20 and why? 

“I like working with SFG20 on a professional level, everyone knows what they're talking about, which is very nice. And it's not very common, believe it or not.  

On a service level I would say SFG20 is very good, the software met my expectations, and I was able to use all the knowledge that I gained from the standard in my daily work too.”